Ecological services in the repowering of wind farms
Wind repowering nature conservation: we support your wind project ecologically from preliminary assessment through permitting and construction to monitoring.
We support your repowering project from start to finish, reliably, competently and with a practical approach. From the preliminary ecological assessment and detailed surveys to well-founded specialist reports, we make sure all environmental requirements are met and your project passes the authorisation procedure with confidence. In the repowering of wind turbines, larger wind turbines replace an existing farm, often at the same site. From a nature conservation perspective, this is not a given: rotor height, rotor diameter and the number of turbines change, and with them the collision risk for birds and bats. New turbines usually have a larger distance between rotor tip and ground, but the assessment at the specific site remains decisive.
Our disciplines are combined: birds, bats, amphibians, reptiles, botany including habitat types, and insects. We develop individual survey concepts tailored to the site and requirements, and use modern survey methods and up-to-date measuring equipment. Our experts are quickly on site, with offices in Vienna, Parndorf and Munderfing. Nacelle monitoring records bat activity at nacelle height and complements the assessment. Activity varies greatly between sites, years and individual turbines and depends on wind speed and temperature. Experts therefore often recommend multi-year surveys at several turbines of a wind farm and assessing each site individually instead of transferring rules of thumb; scope and duration depend on the site, the question at hand and the requirements of the specific procedure. For birds, the planning area around the planned turbines and a wider study area are considered, and the observation points must cover the entire area. Technical recommendations on bird protection are not binding, but deviations must be justified in detail. Decisions are increasingly made only in appeal proceedings, which makes traceable specialist reports, for example on biodiversity, all the more important.
During the construction phase, targeted environmental construction supervision is at your side, and in operation we carry out ecological monitoring to protect flora and fauna. Ecological construction supervision is particularly important when decommissioning the old turbines and building the new ones. The timing of felling and the protective measures for possible bat roosts are determined for each site after an expert check of tree cavities and in line with species protection requirements. As compensation, additional roosts can be created. Reusing existing access roads and crane hardstands also reduces the impact on soil and habitats. Nature conservation in repowering means finding the right balance between technical implementation and environmental protection. After commissioning, monitoring checks whether the planned avoidance measures work, for example bat activity at nacelle height as a function of wind speed. The results can influence operating parameters such as shutdown times.
You will find details in the preliminary ecological assessment and risk analysis, the detailed ecological surveys, the environmental construction supervision and the biological and ecological monitoring. How operation is organised after repowering and which evidence arises in the process is shown in operations management in repowering.
